


one snotty boy and his emotionally constipated tony

by floweryfran



Series: and i knew for sure (i was loved) [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Irondad, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Sick Fic, Sick Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, a reference to antony and cleopatra i don’t expect anyone to appreciate, godly literally godly, i sweat to god tiger balm is like, irondad and spider-son, theres a lot of snot in this fic, tw for peter talking like he's got a broken nose the whole time, very stuffy boy]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Peter hasn’t been sick since he got the spider bite.He figures it’s fair, since he spent a good three days with his head inside the rim of the toilet seat, shivering and hallucinating and feverish and starving but unable to keep anything down. That had been miserable. He thinks of it as his penance.He doesn’t exactly know how it happened, now. Well, like. He has a pretty good idea how ithappened,but he didn’t think it waspossible,is what he keeps telling Tony, “Ndo, really, I would’ve beend more careful if I kndew dis was a possible outcombe, I swear.”Tony is pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You patrolled in the freezing rain and hail? You did that? You made that decision with your actual human brain.”“I did,” Peter says miserably, rubbing his sleeve under his nose. “May says it’s your fauldt for encouraging mbe and it’s your respondsibility to watch mbe ndow.”Tony sighs heavily, then steps aside.or, may sends her sick kid to tony. apparently she trusts his skills as a caretaker more than anyone else does.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: and i knew for sure (i was loved) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722340
Comments: 78
Kudos: 468





	one snotty boy and his emotionally constipated tony

Peter hasn’t been sick since he got the spider bite. 

He figures it’s fair, since he spent a good three days with his head inside the rim of the toilet seat, shivering and hallucinating and feverish and starving but unable to keep anything down. That had been miserable. He thinks of it as his penance. 

He doesn’t exactly know how it happened, now. Well, like. He has a pretty good idea how it _happened,_ but he didn’t think it was _possible,_ is what he keeps telling Tony, “Ndo, really, I would’ve beend more careful if I kndew dis was a possible outcombe, I swear.”

Tony is pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You patrolled in the freezing rain and hail? You did that? You made that decision with your actual human brain.”

“I did,” Peter says miserably, rubbing his sleeve under his nose. “May says it’s your fauldt for encouraging mbe and it’s your respondsibility to watch mbe ndow.”

Tony sighs heavily, then steps aside. 

Peter steps past him into his Manhattan penthouse. Peter has been here before, has been stitched up and has demolished pizzas and played intense rounds of Just Dance in this place, but he’s never showed up with an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and two beanies on his head and a tissue shoved up his left nostril to keep it from bleeding again in the biting wind. City wind is so fucking disrespectful. It’s like constant friction burn. Peter’s face could probably peel off like snakeskin if he tried.

Peter drops his bag beside the door, then curls up on the couch, chills covering every inch of his skin, knees to his chest, pointing his face towards the fire Tony’s got roaring in his exposed brick fireplace. Peter never expected Tony would be an exposed brick sort of guy, but here he is, with a whole wall of the stuff, and a bunch of fancy linen curtains, and a cushy fucking couch, wow. Peter claws at the blanket hanging over the back of it and pulls it over himself. 

Surrounded by warmth, he hums in pleasure. Now his brain feels like it’s melting and the rest of his body is warm enough to match. If he’s gonna die of heat death, he might as well do the job all the way.

He hears Tony snort, then approach the couch. Tony lifts Peter’s feet up and pulls his sneakers off for him. 

“Kid, you’ve got a toe poking right out of the front of your sock.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. He feels the air hit it and shivers.

“Do you need new socks? What the fuck.”

“Nah, these have still got anodder winter in dem.”

“Mother of—” Tony mumbles, then stands. “Do you want a sweatshirt? Something warmer, Cinderelly?”

“Mmb, sure, thandks,” Peter says, poking his face out over the edge of the blanket between his hands to shoot Tony a grin.

Tony shakes his head, but still yanks Peter’s earlobe as he walks by, so Peter thinks that’s a success.

He squirms deeper into the couch. It’s quiet without the clicking of Tony’s faulty ticker, or the rough half-fill of his lungs as he breathes. Peter taps his fingernails against the stiff seams of the couch. Wiggles some more. Rolls onto his back. His head pounds with the movement and he closes his eyes with a groan, pressing his hands over his eyebrows. “Oh, ouchies.”

Tony comes back just in time to hear it and hurries closer, his face far more panicked than the situation warrants. “What, what did you do?”

“Ndothin’,” Peter mumbles, squinting at him. “I amb dying, Egypt, dying. Give mbe sombe wine an’ let mbe speak a little.”

“Isn’t that my line?” Tony says. He tosses the sweatshirt he’d brought at Peter’s head. Peter lets it drape over his face. 

Tony sits back at the edge of the couch and lifts Peter’s feet for a second time, now maneuvering them into another layer of socks. They’re a little too long, but the thought is there, and it makes Peter all mushy. 

Peter shoves his way into the sweatshirt, letting the hood settle down on top of his double beanies. He gives Tony a pained grin, head still aching. The tissue falls unceremoniously from his nostril and flutters onto his chest. 

“Ah,” he says.

“You are disgusting.” Tony gets up a third time, and really, he should just stay, because Peter is starting to think his weight at the end of the couch is doing far more good for him than the sweatshirt or the socks or whatever he’s going to fetch now.

“Hey, where are you goi’g? Where are you _goooi’g?”_

Tony does not answer.

Peter groans dramatically, tossing his arm over his eyes.

Tony patters around the apartment for _far_ too long. Peter pulls the hood closed over his face, crosses his arms, and tracks Tony’s footsteps, but his hearing is all fucked because his whole head is about to burst from the pressure on his sinuses. If he exploded, it would be disgusting. There would be snot all over Tony’s nice lamps and nice Moroccan carpet and nice—fucking candle holders or whatever. Tony’s TV reflects back the orange sunset over Manhattan, and that would be really nice if Peter weren’t _royally frustrated and grievously ill right now._ Tony has no right to not be giving him all of the regard his tiny body can manage. Peter needs it. To be waited on. 

He needs _attention._

When Tony does return, Peter can hear the rustle of an armful of shit rubbing against his sleeves. Peter sort of spitefully wants to not look at him on account of the fact that he was just needlessly abandoned, but then he thinks he can smell fucking _soup_ so he pulls his eyes free of the hood. 

He was right. Tony’s got a mug of soup nearly spilling all over his hand, and a bottle of pills, a heating pad, a little canister of that Tiger Balm shit he swears by, a tissue box, a thermometer, a bottle of Gatorade, and several pillows stuffed between his arms. 

“Shit,” Peter says, sitting up as quickly as he can without keeling right back over. He takes the mug and puts it on the coffee table, then jams the pillows all along the back of the couch. 

Tony puts the rest of his loot down on the table, saying, “Alright, alright. Let’s do this properly. Temperature first.”

“I’ve got one.”

“A temperature? Man, I hope so.”

Peter snorts thickly. A glob of phlegm flies into his mouth. “Oh, fuckindg _gross,”_ he says, grabbing a bundle of tissues and spitting it out. 

“Oh my god not in my house,” Tony says shrilly. “Germs everywhere. Okay, it’s fine, I totally don’t have a compromised immune system, if I say it enough times it’ll be true.”

Peter shoots him a glance. Too quickly. He presses a hand to his temple and closes his eyes as his vision blacks out, pain radiating like the smack of a gong. “You have a combromised immunde systemb?”

“Oh, stop that. It’s fine. I’m super fine. Superhero fine.”

“Superhero _sick_ if you stay ndear mbe,” Peter corrects, scooting as far backwards along the couch as he can.

“Hey, as long as I wash my hands and don’t, like, breathe in every breath that comes out of your mouth, I’ll be fine.”

Peter groans. “Tooondy,” he says. “I’ll go, really.”

Tony snorts as if the idea of that is hilarious to him. He reaches out and moves Peter’s hand from his temple, taking the weight of Peter’s head against his palm. Peter leans into it because Tony has blissfully cold hands and they’re working like an ice pack right now.

The next thing Peter knows, Tony’s jamming the thermometer in his mouth.

Peter jumps in surprise but lifts his tongue. 

“Shush. Three minutes, right? That’s how long to wait for?”

Peter nods, slowly this time.

Tony nods back in satisfaction. “Here, let’s—fix the pillows, this is a mess.”

Tony fiddles with them, laying them out properly, stacking a couple behind Peter’s back to keep his head raised. 

“Good?” Tony asks.

Peter shoots him a thumbs up. 

Tony responds by grabbing the thermometer out of his mouth and checking it, squinting to read the number. He curses. “That’s one-oh-two. Is your brain a baked alaska yet?”

“Pretty close,” Peter admits, leaning back into the pillows.

Tony starts pulling the hats off him.

“Hey,” Peter whines, trying to wiggle out of Tony’s arms reach, but Tony is worse than Doc Ock on a bad day. He gets them off, revealing Peter’s sweaty curls.

“You’re gonna overheat yourself,” Tony says, pulling the blanket off next.

Peter whines, taken over by a wave of shudders. “But I’m freezing.”

“You’re not,” Tony says, but he grabs Peter’s foot and squeezes it as he returns to the far end of the couch. “You just feel like you are. You’re shaky, not cold, but your body knows it’s shivering and making you _think_ you’re cold.”

“Brr,” Peter says petulantly, rubbing his upper arms.

Tony softens a little and squeezes Peter’s foot again. “Alright. Come on. Soup, and then fever reducers, okay?”

Peter grumbles some more but sits up. He’s not nauseous, which is a relief. He’s hoping the soup stays down.

He pulls his knees up to his chest and starts to sip at it as Tony fumbles with the remote. He pulls up the Great British Baking Show, and Peter grins outright, turning towards him with the smile still spread wide across his face.

Tony grins back and presses play, leaning back into the cushions.

The episode is a good distraction from Peter’s soup and general misery, watching the bakers rush around and try to cut Florentines out with circle cutters when Peter knows full well that Florentines are supposed to have nice lacy edges. Rookie mistake.

He puts the mug down on the table when he’s finished, feeling warmer on the inside. Less shaky, too.

Tony pats his head like he’s a dog that remembered to shit outside this time.

Peter rolls his eyes.

Tony gives him the fever reducers then, along with the radioactively yellow Gatorade. Peter sips at it, completely unable to taste it, and the medicine hits him with the usual whammy of just fucking unresolvable nausea, which is a nice cherry on top of everything else.

“Hnghg,” Peter says.

Tony shoots him a glance. “What’s up?”

“Feel gross.”

Tony scoots just close enough to feel Peter’s forehead. “You don’t seem any warmer.”

“Well, I mbight puke all over your couch, so,” Peter grumbles.

Tony freezes.

“I’mb bei’g drambatic,” Peter says. “Just—fever reducers mbake mbe nauseous.”

“Oh. Aw, kid. I’m sorry. Want some bread or something?”

Peter shakes his head slowly. “Ndothing helps.”

Tony grimaces, then squeezes Peter’s knee. He’s staring at Peter with this weird, almost constipated look he gets sometimes, like he’s trying really hard to be soft but he’s just really got to let this turd out first, and Peter finds himself amused by it.

“What?” he says. “Ndo, let it out.”

“I can’t fix it,” Tony says.

“Ndope.”

“I don’t like that.”

“I kndow.”

“Ugh.”

“Dis is how ndormal people feel all the time.”

“I hate it. I hate being normal people. Oh, fuck this.”

Peter smiles a little. “Aw, you care.”

“No,” Tony says with a sniff. “No, I just—oh, who am I kidding. I care so much.”

Peter laughs out loud, discomfort forgotten. “Alright,” he says, and maneuvers onto his knees. He crawls forward across the couch, drops a pillow on Tony’s lap, and then smushes his face onto it, turned out so he can still see the TV.

“Oh,” Tony says stupidly.

“Shh, just let it happend,” says Peter, groping for Tony’s hand. When he finds it, he drops it onto his own head.

Tony gets the message and starts playing with Peter’s hair, twisting the curls around his fingers and scratching his blunt nails behind Peter’s temples.

Peter hums happily. 

Tony snorts, but doesn’t stop. He picks up the Tiger Balm with his other hand and opens the little jar, smearing some onto his thumb and then rubbing it into Peter’s temple.

The instant cooling sensation is, like, brilliant. Peter takes back all the smack he talked about this shit behind Tony’s back. He will bow down and pray to the tiger god, or whatever. 

Something must show on his face because Tony says, “Nice, right?” under his breath and keeps massaging Peter’s temple.

“Mmph.”

Tony laughs quietly. “Here, roll on your back so I can get the other side too.”

Peter obliges a little wonderingly because when the fuck did they reach the point where Tony can, like, massage his head while Peter drips snot all over his pillows? Peter doesn’t know, but he’s not complaining. It’s nice, sometimes, to have all of this concentrated attention on him. Especially from someone he literally adores. Like Tony.

Tony’s other hand takes up Peter’s other temple, and Peter sighs in pleasure, his whole forehead tingling pleasantly. 

“You just relax, bub,” Tony whispers. “I’ve gotcha. You’ll be fine.”

Peter thinks he might hum in response but he’s so far gone he doesn’t think he’ll ever know. He falls into a warm, comfortable sleep like he’s tripped into tar. He sinks slowly, serenely.

—

Peter doesn’t know what time it is when he drags himself into a semblance of consciousness, but he tears an eye open and the apartment is navy with deep night light. The TV is paused on the _Are you still watching?_ screen. Peter blinks blearily and looks to his other side to find Tony melted sideways, pillow jammed between the armrest and his head, mouth slack with sleep. His breath is warm against the still-cool balm on Peter’s forehead. 

Peter moves himself and his pillow so he can press his face into Tony’s chest. In sleep, Tony’s arm tugs him closer. 

Peter closes his eyes. Tony’s got him. He’ll be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> HI I HOPE YOU ENJOYED lemme know what u want next because this whole series is just tumblr requests
> 
> keep ur eyes OPEN for beedee's (peterstank) and my next collab coming early this week.......................
> 
> EDIT: READ [HERE](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9567630) in Russian!!


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